Religious Democrats? Imagine That!

The other day on NPR, Robert Siegel did a story on the Virginia gubernatorial race, much of which focused on the differing religious and political outlooks of Democratic candidate Tim Kaine and Republican candidate Jerry Kilgore.  You can listen to the story here and correct for yourself any unintentional errors that I make in this entry.  

The All Things Considered website says that the campaign has "one particularly unusual twist."  And indeed, Bob Siegel seems genuinely baffled by Mr. Kaine's forthright references to his Roman Catholic faith and his willingness to discuss its influence on his life and work, and Mr. Kilgore's comparative reticence about his Baptist faith.  Mr. Kaine's life of public service began when he took a year off during law school to work as a missionary in Honduras, an experience which altered his perspective and set him on his life's path.  

I am puzzled by Bob Siegel's treatment of Mr. Kaine as somehow unusual in his openness about the role that his religious experiences have played in his life, and unusual particularly because he is a Democrat.   

Or maybe I'm not.  Maybe I'm just sick and tired of the media's pandering to the religious right and open-mouthed astonishment whenever it finds people of deep faith and religious conviction whose political and social values tend to run counter to what the media persists in describing as religious.   

You know what? -- we aren't so hard to find.  But we aren't particularly loud-mouthed, we don't go around making outrageous statements for the sake of shock value, and we have this terrible habit of being tolerant of the views of others.  And we aren't afraid of our doubts, our questions, or our uncertainty.  

Nearly everywhere that I worked as a lawyer before I switched careers, I found myself in the midst of people who made decisions every single day on the basis of thoughtful and carefully articulated religious belief.  EVERY SINGLE DAY.  Jews, Protestants, Catholics.  Some were pro-life, some were pro-choice.  Some were pro-death penalty, some were ag'in it.  Some for prayer in schools, some not.  Some Republican, some Democrat. Some passionate environmentalists, some who probably own three SUVs today.  People differ.  But it is not unusual, in the United States of America, to find people who make daily decisions, ranging from how to treat a difficult colleague to how to resolve complex ethical dilemmas of advocacy, on the basis of religious beliefs which they readily discuss and evaluate.

It's also not all that unusual, although perhaps more so  than I would like to think, to find Christians who believe that their faith tells them the following: Care for the impoverished and disenfranchised.  God made us all as we are, so: Include everyone.  Don't go to war.   God forgives everything.  Be attentive.  Cherish and protect the created universe.  Try not to kill people.  If you can't help it, regret it and try harder not to.  Extend yourself to all of the people of God. That means everyone.  GIVE AWAY EVERYTHING THAT YOU HAVE.   

Me?  I do all those things to perfection.   Okay, so maybe I make a teeny little mistake every now and then.  Especially on the humility part of Micah 6:8.  And I do have a little bit too much in the way of stuff.  

But I am here to tell you that there is nothing unusual about Tim Kaine and his attempt to live according to the dictates of his religion.  The religious right does not have a lock on that.